


Choose Your Face Wisely

by MsMelancholy



Series: Crowley was Raphael :) [1]
Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Brotherly Bonding, Brotherly Love, Crowley Was Raphael Before He Fell (Good Omens), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Existential Crisis, Gabriel is kind of out of character but, He's Baby, How Do I Tag, Hurt Crowley, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I have a better fic, I spend like 3 hours writing this so you're going to have to live with it, I swear someone from my school is going to see this and question my sanity, I'm the Archangel FUCKING Gabriel, Light Angst, Protective Crowley, Protective Gabriel, Protective Siblings, SORRY TIMES TWO, Softie Crowley (Good Omens), but this one was sort of on my mind for a while, not sorry, sorry - Freeform, sorry], this is really bad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-30
Updated: 2019-07-30
Packaged: 2020-07-26 03:14:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20036983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MsMelancholy/pseuds/MsMelancholy
Summary: "On any other day, Crowley would have slammed the door in his face and returned to his regularly scheduled nap. Although, he couldn’t deny his curious nature. If Gabriel had something planned, he would have done it by now. If he was in the process of planning something, Crowley would know.If angels were known for their ability to sense love, then demons could sense hate and anger and all of the disgusting emotions that humans and supernatural entities alike expressed. Surprisingly, Crowley couldn’t sense any ill intent from Gabriel. That both scared him and intrigued him."[Gabriel needs to discuss something with Crowley. They bond.]





	Choose Your Face Wisely

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, this is lowkey bad, but I read another fic with a similar premise where Gabriel finds out that Crowley was Raphael before the fall. Now I'm??? Obsessed??? With the idea of this???? Wow?? I have no life???

It wasn’t often that Crowley was at the bookshop alone. He only visited the cramped little shop when Aziraphale invited him over or when the world got the better of him and he felt like the only thing keeping him afloat was his favorite angel. As it was, Aziraphale was out running errands. Crowley initially planned on tagging along, but the winter weather had already begun to creep upon them. Neither he or Aziraphale wanted to deal with a sleepy and cranky Crowley.*

[*Crowley’s hiss also became more pronounced as he got colder and more tired. He’d hated his hiss since he fell, so it was in his best interest to avoid situations where the wretched sound might make an appearance.]

When he heard a knock at the front door, his immediate reaction was to ignore it. When the knock repeated, he opened one of his eyes and glanced at the door. 

“We’re closed!” He called out before nestling back into the couch.

Yet, the knock came again. This time, he stood, his long gangly limbs cracking and popping as he stretched. All he wanted was to sleep in his Special Spot on the couch until his angel returned from whatever errands he was running, but some stupid human couldn’t seem to grasp the meaning of the phrase, “We’re closed”. 

If Crowley wasn’t irritated yet, he certainly was when he opened the door to reveal none other than Gabriel. The angel’s usually neat hair was slightly disheveled and instead of a suit, he was wearing a lavender-colored sweatsuit. Crowley scoffed at the angel’s initials that were embroidered into the corner of the sweatshirt with golden thread. 

“Crowley!” Gabriel said jovially. “Just the demon I was looking for!”

Crowley grimaced at the man’s unnaturally loud voice. “If you were looking for me, why did you come here?”

“I stopped by your flat and you weren’t there,” Gabriel explained. “So, I came here to ask Aziraphale where you might be.” 

“What do you need me for?” Crowley glowered. “What happened to not fraternizing with the ‘ _ enemy’. _ ”

“Always with the questions.” The angel laughed nervously. “I wanted to talk to you about something.” 

“Something?” Crowley quirked an eyebrow.

“It’s rather--erm,  _ important _ , so maybe you’ll invite me inside?”

On any other day, Crowley would have slammed the door in his face and returned to his regularly scheduled nap. Although, he couldn’t deny his curious nature. If Gabriel had something planned, he would have done it by now. If he was in the process of planning something, Crowley would know. 

If angels were known for their ability to sense love, then demons could sense hate and anger and all of the disgusting emotions that humans and supernatural entities alike expressed.** Surprisingly, Crowley couldn’t sense any ill intent from Gabriel. That both scared him and intrigued him.

[**When Satan came bursting through the Earth in an attempt to punish his naughty kid, Crowley collapsed to the ground with the overwhelming wave of raw anger. Of course, Crowley wouldn’t admit it, but it was the third scariest experience in his life; Save for thinking Aziraphale was dead followed by Aziraphale threatening to never talk to him again.]

“Fine, whatever.” Crowley held the door open for him.

Gabriel walked right in and made his way over to the couch, taking a seat. By the time Crowley had shut the door, Gabriel had already snapped back into his infamous suit and was sitting with one leg crossed over the other. 

“You interrupted a nap, so if you could get along with this, I’d be  _ eternally grateful. _ ” Crowley flashed a toothy grin.

“I-- so, uh, I know who you are.” Gabriel said simply.

“Okay?”

“No- you don’t get it.” Gabriel uncrossed his legs and leaned forward, clasping his hands in front of him. Nervous energy radiated off of him in waves and Crowley was taken aback because  _ Holy Shit, Gabriel has other settings besides being a douchebag.  _ “I know you, Raphael.”

Crowley tensed. Just the utterance of that name made his stomach twist and turn. He’d spent countless nights crying and mourning the loss of that name and the loss of those he held close to him. And for what? Being curious? Being himself? If God wanted everyone to be good little soldiers, she should have done better. She created them in  _ her  _ image after all.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Crowley managed to spit out like venom.

“I’m not trying to antagonize you!” Gabriel raised his hands defensively. “It’s just-- I don’t know how to react. You were the closest to God. She allowed you to create stars and I’m pretty sure if you were still around she would have let you help her create the first humans.” 

“Gabriel—“

“What did you do wrong?”

Crowley bit his tongue so hard that he was sure that it was bleeding. “I asked too many questions.” He said bitterly.

“Like?”

Crowley hesitated, but Gabriel showed no sign of just giving up and returning to heaven. 

“I asked her why. Why do we exist? What’s her plan for us? Why?” He was grateful for his sunglasses. He was sure that his eyes had probably gone full serpentine, the yellow swallowing up whatever white there was.

“Surely that’s not all—“

“Believe me, I know.” Crowley crosses his arms over his chest tightly. “I didn’t even know it was wrong! We were in the middle of creating a constellation and she just got so  _ mad _ —“

Crowley stopped and took a steadying breath. He wasn’t going to fall apart in front of Gabriel. He had standards for himself and today wasn’t the day that he was going to lower them. The angel and the demon remained silent for a moment.

“Aziraphale told me you came in here once to buy pornography?” Crowley deflected.

“Not really. I needed a reason to go into the back room.” Gabriel coughed at the awkward shift in topics. 

“So you announced to the entire store that you were buying porn?”

“Yes, uh, is that wrong?” Gabriel sat up, suddenly thinking of every life decision he’s never made.

Crowley doubled over with laughter, it rung off of the walls and echoed back to them. Gabriel found himself smiling despite the embarrassment.

“Porn is...you know...sexual shit.” Crowley tried to explain once his laughter died down. “So you basically announced to all of his customers that you wanted to buy an erotic book about sex and dicks and vaginas. They don’t typically do that, their lot.”

Gabriel paled. “What— I swear I had no clue! I’d heard a demon say something about it when I went to visit Beelzebub and just assumed it was a thing humans read!”

Gabriel liked to keep up appearances. He exercised at least once a week to keep his corporation looking nice and neat. He’d looked down on Aziraphale for sullying his vessel with food, but he couldn’t deny that sometimes he found himself locking the door to his office to indulge in a salad with croutons. God damn did he love croutons

. 

“Don’t get me wrong, they read it. It’s just not something so...public. More of a private thing.”

“So...what should I have said?”

Crowley launched into a lesson about different forms of media and the different genres. He was easily able to explain what the different genres of music were, even going on a tangent about how Velvet Underground was not and never would be considered BeBop. When it came to trying to explain books, Crowley tripped and stumbled over his words, trying to recite facts that he had heard Aziraphale spout. By the end of it, Gabriel was invested in finding out his favorite type of music, but of course, he wouldn’t admit that aloud.

“What were you saying earlier about Beezelbub?” A devious smile danced across Crowley’s face. “You visit him?”

“What-- No! I would never-- he’s the prince of hell and I’m an archangel I would-- why would you even imply such a thing?” Gabriel fretted.

Gabriel reminded Crowley of Aziraphale when they had first begun to talk. Not on the wall, but at the start of their little dinner dates where they actually started to learn about the other’s interests. Aziraphale would flush at the simplest of questions. Crowley distinctively remembered Aziraphale stuttering and stammering out a response when Crowley asked who his favorite musical artist was. It was a normal question but Aziraphale was blushing up a storm. ***

[***Crowley would later find out that  _ he  _ was Aziraphale’s favorite musical artist. Despite never openly showing Aziraphale his musical talents, Aziraphale had heard Crowley singing in the shower or singing along to the radio or humming an aimless tune while they traveled together. Aziraphale wished Crowley would release an album of some sort, but at the same time, he didn’t want Crowley to become famous. Aziraphale wasn’t a fan of sharing what was his.]

“Just admit it! You two are--”

“Don’t say it!” Gabriel covered his face with his hands.

“In love~”

“We are  _ not. _ ”

“Right right. That’s why you two showed up together to come to yell at Aziraphale and me.” Crowley snickered. “And you coordinated kidnapping us at the same time. Kind of obvious, really.”

Gabriel was silent for a few seconds before he pulled his hands away from his face. “...Was it really that obvious..?”

“Afraid so.” He sighed softly before flashing a quick smile at the purple-eyed angel. “Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me.”

“She’s wrong,” Gabriel said suddenly.

“What?”

“God— she’s wrong.” 

“You don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.” Crowley sighed softly. “She did what she did, there’s nothing I can do about it. Plus, you could _ fall  _ for saying something like that.”

Gabriel decided that he did  _ not  _ like when Crowley sounded so defenseless and sad. Crowley, even when he was being cruel and angry and mean and annoying, was a pretty warm person. He kept to himself and tried to act like he didn’t give a shit about the world, but it was clear to see that he cared. He cared almost too much.

Raphael was the exact same way. Raphael loved the stars he created. The angel practically skipped down the hallways of heaven whenever he had finished creating a new star, radiating this joy and happiness that made any angel within a one-mile radius feel weak at the knees. 

Raphael was the big brother every angel wanted. He teased everyone relentlessly. _‘You mean to tell me God issued you a trident and you lost it?’_ _‘Fine. I’ll name the star Sirius as a joke. If God gets cross with me, I’m blaming you’. _Raphael was imaginative and curious and creative-- and everyone accepted him like that because that’s just who he was. 

“No angels have fallen since the beginning,” Gabriel admitted sullenly. “People are starting to believe that  _ she  _ has abandoned us. That her making all of those angels fall was just some big power trip and now she regrets what she’s done. She’s afraid.”

“Don’t say shit like that,” Crowley warned. “I will  _ not  _ have you falling on my hands. Archangels can fall, Gabriel...I can’t let that happen.”

The ‘again’ went unsaid.

“I’ve spent all this time hating you. All because you were a demon. I didn’t even know--”

“There wassss no way for you to know.” Crowley hissed, suddenly feeling vulnerable.

“You’re my big brother, like hell, there was no way for me to know!” Gabriel huffed. 

Crowley fidgeted under the angel's objective stare. He hated feeling like this, open and vulnerable and raw. He felt like Gabriel was staring down into the depths of his soul, just reading him like an open book.

“They told us that demons forget about their lives before the fall. They said that it was a punishment.” Gabriel chuckled bitterly. “ _ This _ is more of a punishment than that. You mean to tell me you’ve lived with this for more than 6000 years. Knowing that you could never rejoin us in heaven?” 

“It was a long time ago, Gabe.” The nickname slid off his tongue easily. “You get over it.”****

[****Crowley was definitely not over it. The fall had given him copious amounts of PTSD. Not to mention the trust issues that he’d developed because if he couldn’t trust God, who else could he trust. Aziraphale worked with him on these things as well as his other anxieties, but they never truly went away.]

“That doesn’t matter! You could have tried to tell us you remembered! You could have asked us for help and we would have helped you!”

Crowley scoffed. “Oh please. Your lot wouldn’t have done anything. You would have thought I was trying to tempt you or something equally as blasphemous. I’m a demon and you’re all angels.”

Gabriel couldn’t lie to himself, Crowley was right. If Crowley had been the one to say ‘ _ Hey it’s me, Raphael. God lied to you, I never got sent away on an assignment, I actually fell because I was too annoying.’ _ , more than one angel would have grabbed a weapon and attempted to murder him. Losing Raphael had been a sore spot for  _ everyone _ , even though God told them to forget about it.

“But you’re still you,” Gabriel muttered softly. “You still act the way you did back then. The only difference is now you’re labeled as a demon--”

“No, the only difference is that I’m evil. I have these ssssnake eyes and these black wings and thissss godforsaken hissss--” Crowley was standing suddenly. His hair cascaded onto his shoulders like flowing lava. It seemed to light up the space around them like fire. 

“That’s not true. You’re still you! That’s all that matters.”

“You don’t get it.” 

“There has to be  _ something _ left behind from back then. You’re still Raphael, demon or not!”

A bright glow illuminated the room, Gabriel squeezed his eyes shut. The room felt hot and stuffy suddenly. Gabriel had half a mind to believe that Crowley had summoned some hellfire to get rid of the lavender themed archangel, but the logical half of him realized that Raphael-- er,  _ Crowley _ , wasn’t capable of doing something so unnecessarily evil and cruel.

Crowley’s wings were a sight to behold. Gabriel had never seen the demon’s wings-- in fact, he had never seen a demon with wings, so he figured that losing their wings was just another punishment that God had cast upon the rebels. But here he was face to face with two bright white angel wings.

“What the--”

Two more wings faded into vision, but these were a grey-ish color. A third pair appeared, as black as the night sky itself. *****

[*****Crowley never  _ lost  _ his wings. He just never had the energy to conjure up all 6 of them. The black pair were always the easiest to conjure, plus they were the more aesthetically pleasing of the 3 pairs. No one had known that Crowley still retained all 6 of his wings. The demon himself didn’t find out about it until he found himself stuck in Russia once where he accidentally conjured up all 6 of them in an attempt to protect himself from the cold.]

“I don’t understand.” Gabriel blinked.

“Believe me, I feel the same way.” Crowley slumped down onto the couch again, all of his energy seeming exhausted. He flexed and stretched his wings out as if he never got to let them out into this plane of existence.

“So, was everything she told us a lie?” Gabriel questioned aloud. 

Crowley looked at him, guilt shining in his eyes. “Gabe, I’m--”

“Don’t even say it.” Gabriel cut him off. “It was bound to happen someday. I guess it just took you and Aziraphale to start slapping some sense into us.” 

“What do you mean?”

“A few of the lower-ranked angels have started to get antsy. They’ve begun to get  _ bored  _ of heaven. They started asking us to be reassigned to different tasks, but after a while, it became too much for Michael and me to delegate ourselves. We tried to get in contact with God, but she won’t answer. Not even  _ me. _ ” Gabriel ran a hand down his face, stress lines more prominent now. “Armageddon was the perfect excuse for us to ignore all of the angry angels yelling at us for answers that we didn’t have. Then you and Aziraphale screwed everything up and Michael and I had to come to terms with the fact that God probably isn’t going to assist us.”

“Oh.” Crowley said dumbly. “You’re welcome?”

“You know, it was Michael who put two and two together about you being Raphael.”

“Really? How?”

Gabriel huffed out a half-laugh. “When he came back to heaven after your trial, he was hysterical. I’ve never seen Michael so flustered.”

“He was going on about how everything was out of balance and existence as we know it would probably be destroyed because of the calamity going on. Then he muttered something like ‘If Raphael were still around, maybe we could get things under control’. It sort of just clicked then.”

“That’s your reason for why  _ I  _ just had to be Raphael?” Crowley scoffed. “That’s hardly any reason.”

“Well, we had a suspicion, and dug a little deeper to find the proof.” Gabriel waved his hand distractedly. “Like, did you know that all of your miracles are still being monitored up there? No one bothered to check after 6000 years of radio silence from you, but when we went to check your file, there were 6000 years of miracles worth.”

“Well, that’s convenient.” Crowley chuckled. “Just makes me wonder.”

“What?”

“If falling is really falling. Like-- most of the demons wanted to be free. Maybe falling was their way of being free.” Crowley rambled. “But then again, hell is just a mirror of heaven if I’m being honest. Everything is carried out in the same manner except they manage temptations for Satan while your lot manages blessings for God.”

“What, do you think that God never really forced anyone to fall?”

“When you put it that way it sounds like She never did anything wrong.” Crowley scowled. “But I guess so. Those who fell got to do as they pleased for a while. Then Satan got techy and started forcing us to steal the souls from Heaven and redirect them to Hell. Via temptations of course.”

Gabriel’s head was starting to pound with the different possibilities and theories and questions floating around his head. Suddenly, he remembered why it was difficult to spend too much time with Raphael. The archangel, as sweet as he might have been, was too curious for his own good and asked questions that no one could answer. 

“It was nice seeing you again, Raph.” Gabriel stood.

“It’s Crowley.”

“Right, sorry.” 

“Don’t hesitate to contact me though,” Gabriel said as he made his way to the front door.

Crowley vanished his wings, sinking deeper into his crevice on the couch. “Whatever you say, Gabe.”

“Seriously, Crowley.” Gabriel said seriously, the breeze blowing his hair every which way.

“I heard you the first time, baby  _ bother _ .” Crowley teased. “Go ahead and share the good news with Michael or whatever.” 

Gabriel smiled to himself as he pulled the door shut. It was weird. He felt so out of place casually talking to a demon, especially Crowley. But strangely enough, Crowley radiated the same aura as he did all those years ago. An aura that made weeping angels smile and angry archangels put down their weapons and truce. Maybe Raphael was gone, but he still lived within Crowley. Gabriel couldn’t really complain.****** He found himself smiling the whole way back to headquarters. 

[******Let it be noted that Gabriel was  _ not  _ soft. He was only soft for Raphael. He’d spent 6000 years wondering what assignment was so important that God had delegated Raphael for it. Beggars can’t be choosers. At least he had Raphael back in some sort of form.]

**Author's Note:**

> I hope y'all enjoyed!!! 
> 
> Honestly, this was an excuse to make Gabriel and Crowley interact because I wanted to write a different dynamic than I'm used to. Please give me requests and comments!! I love writing different concepts and ideas because it expands my range of writing!
> 
> Also, hit me up on Tumblr https://mdotley.tumblr.com so we can rant about head cannons and dumb shit together!! I have no life!! Please talk to me!!


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